The recent dishonest, consciously distorted and
insulting non-interpretation of my poem, "Somebody Blew Up
America" by the "Anti-Defamation" League, is
fundamentally an attempt to defame me. And with that, an attempt
to repress and stigmatize independent thinkers everywhere.

This trashy propaganda is characteristic of right-wing
zealots who are interested only in slander and character
assassination of those whose views or philosophies differ from
or are in contradiction to theirs.

First, the poem underlying theme focuses on how Black
Americans have suffered from domestic terrorism since being
kidnapped into US chattel slavery, e.g., by Slave Owners, US
& State Laws, Klan, Skin Heads, Domestic Nazis, Lynching,
denial of rights, national oppression, racism, character
assassination, historically, and at this very minute throughout
the US. The relevance of this to Bush call for a "War on
Terrorism", is that Black people feel we have always been
victims of terror, governmental and general, so we cannot get as
frenzied and hysterical as the people who while asking us to
dismiss our history and contemporary reality to join them, in
the name of a shallow "patriotism" in attacking the
majority of people in the world, especially people of color and
in the third world.

This is said to us, even as this counterfeit president has
legalized the Confederate Flag in Mississippi. Could the victims
of European Fascism be as frantically loyal to a regime that
would fly a Nazi Swastika over their homes? So we cannot, in
good conscience, celebrate what seems to us an international
crusade to set up a military dictatorship over the world,
legitimatized at base, by white supremacy, carried out, no
matter the crude lies, as the most terrifying form of
Imperialism and its attendant national oppression. All of it
designed to drain super profits bluntly from the colored peoples
of the world, but as well, from the majority of the peoples in
the world. For all the frantic condemnations of Terror by Bush
&c, as the single International Super Power, they are the
most dangerous terrorists in the world!

Actually, in my focus on various forces of terror Afro
Americans and other oppressed people of the world have suffered,
slavery, colonialism, Imperialism, Neo neo-colonialism, National
Oppression, the ADL disingenuously makes no mention of my
probing into the creators of the holocaust, e.g., "who put
the Jews in ovens, / and who helped them do it, / Who said
"America First"/ and Ok'd the yellow stars",
which of course is a reference to America's domestic fascists
just before World War 2 and the Nazi Holocaust.

Nor do these ADL purveyors of falsehood mention the poem's
listing of some of the Jews across the world, oppressed,
imprisoned, murdered by actual Anti- Semitic forces, open or
disguised. The poem asks "Who killed Rosa Luxembourg,
Liebnecht/Who murdered the Rosenbergs/ And all the good people
iced, tortured, assassinate, vanished."

The ADL apparently is not outraged by McCarthy era frame-up
and execution of the Rosenbergs, nor the assassination of German
Jewish Communist leaders like Liebnecht, Luxembourg. The ADL
leaves these things out to try to make their lies more
believable, and also because these victims of imperialism were
on the Left.

Happily the Star Ledger published the entire poem,
though including in a box, supposedly identifying the offending
phrases, my question, "Who Blew Up The
Reichstag?" as if the ADL had also claimed that the poem
was inferring that Jews did it. When it was Hitler's destruction
of the Reichstag, that provided the pretext for the general
imprisonment of Jews, after incarcerating Communists, Social
Democrats and Trade Unionists. Why this was done one can
only speculate, but this is the kind of sloppy or intentionally
slanderous journalism one can often find in the media. It also
reflects the kind of unprincipled attack that characterizes ADL
press release.

The Reichstag fire, parallels the 911 Attack, in that after
that "mysterious act of terrorism", which Hitler
blamed on Jews and Communists, the Nazis passed a law The
Reichstag Enablement Act, that gave the Nazis much the same
carte blanche as the Bush administration used the 911 tragedy to
pass the wholly undemocratic Patriot Bill and begin rounding up
suspects, even without identifying them. Of course the actual
arsonists of the Reichstag terror were never found, though most
scholars are certain it was the Nazis themselves.

Of the other lines of the poem, which the ADL termed an
example of the Hitlerian "Big Lie", and the poet's
"spewing Anti-Semitic venom". The lines, "Who
knew the World Trade Center was gonna get/bombed?" Well
now, certainly, even the Democratic Party has affirmed that the
Bush Administration knew. I agree with this, and it is
everywhere on the Internet that not only was the US warned
repeatedly by Germany, France, Russia, England but also Israel.
Michael Ruppert of the Green Party has issued a video stating
clearly, "Israeli security issued urgent warnings to the
CIA of large-scale terror attacks. And that the Israeli Mossad
knew that the attacks were going to take place" they knew
that the World Trade Center were the targets. This is from
British newspaper the "Telegraph". (Copies of these
documents available with this statement.)

In addition there are articles in all forms of media and of
course the Internet confirming or suggesting that the entire
Imperialist world knew and had warned the US CIA in advance, but
no action was taken. WHY. They say they "couldn't connect
the dots". The FBI agents in Minnesota and Arizona
who said that FBI received a report in 1998 that a terrorist
organization planned to bring people to the US to enroll
in flight schools.

Zacharias Moussoui, now charged with conspiring in the Sept
11 attacks, was arrested by the Minnesota agents of the FBI in
August 2001 but FBI HQ denied agents request to seek a warrant
even to search his computer. And in a prepared statement by a
Minnesota FBI agent, he blamed legal restrictions but
principally FBI headquarters for impeding a more aggressive
investigation of this man. As for the other agent's
attempt to warn the FBI HQ of these attacks, he was rebuffed
when he made the report, but now FBI HQ says it has not record
of such warning. (See Truthout.org/docs)

There are other incredible dots on the media, for instance
the stockholders of American Airlines and United, which were the
carriers highjacked to commit the terror began withdrawing stock
from these companies in August before the attacks.
The most offensive phrase in the poem to my various attackers
is, "Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers / to
stay home that day/ Why did Sharon stay away?" To infer
that I am accusing Israel of committing the atrocity is
disingenuous slander and character assassination. But I do
believe, as I stated about England, Germany, France, Russia,
that the Israeli government, certainly itâ€™s security
force, SHABAK knew about the attack in advance.

The Israeli newspaper Yadiot Ahranot lst revealed that SHABAK
had canceled Sharon's appearance in New York City that day, Sept
11, where he was supposed to speak at an "Israel Day"
celebration. This was also mentioned in the Star Ledger,
to the effect that Sharon was supposed to visit the US, but no
dates were mentioned. It is the Green
Party's Ruppert who makes the most effective case for the 4000
Israeli workers (Not Jewish Workers!) but Israeli nationals.
He says in his video, "if what I am showing you is
known overtly although the media, how much more does our thirty
billion dollar intelligence community know."

He goes on, and this seems true to me, It is
"Nonsense" to say the Israelis did it. They were
warning the U.S. hand over fist. "Ruppert speculates
further 1. The US did not listen 2. They needed the
attacks" which I leave to time, as Malcolm X said, Time
will tell.

But the most stunning revelation is this, again Ruppert,
"We reviewed the list of former tenants of the World Trade
Center at the on-line Wall Street Journal site. And there's
the website. It is an alphabetical list of tenants. Scroll to
the very bottom and notice the moving date for the office of Zim
American-Israeli Shipping to Norfolk,Virginia. They were in the
World Trade Center. They must have had Mossad" (or
Shabak- AB) input because they vacated one week before September
and they broke their lease.

The Israelis didn't pull the attack, but they were smart
enough to get their people out of the way. How come our
government didn't do the same thing for us."
(Statement & Quote by George DeCarlo, Coordinator of Union
County Greens, Co Founder of the NJ Lavender Greens- included in
media pkg.)

The poem was never saying anything else, i.e., why didn't the
other slaughtered Americans know? I WAS NOT SAYING ISRAEL WAS
RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ATTACK, BUT THAT THEY KNEW AND OUR OWN
COUNTERFEIT PRESIDENT DID TOO!

There is other disturbing facts surround the hideous 911
attacks, which my family and I could see from the third floor
bathroom window of our homes! And certainly one day all this
will be thoroughly investigated. The poem says "Who
know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion/ And cracking
they sides at the notion." I got this story from The
Star Ledger, where it appeared twice, and The New York
Times.

The reference to "cracking they sides" or laughing
uproariously while filming the 911 attack, apparently on the top
of a truck from the Jersey side is a direct paraphrase of the
Ledger articles. In fact, the State Police, who arrested them,
stated that that is one of the reasons they did arrest them,
because they were laughing.

Again, these were Israeli Nationals, persons holding Israeli
passports. The Times article even reported on what their
lives were like in Jail. And implied they would be deported.
So this reference is not more of the ADL's "Anti-Semitic
venom" but arrived at merely from studying the US
media.

Why those five Israelis were there filming and laughing I do
not claim know. That's why the poem here and throughout
continuously chants the question WHO WHO WHO?
That is, who is responsible for this horrible crime and WHY? It
is a poem that aims to probe and disturb, but there is not the
slightest evidence of Anti-Semitism, as anyone who reads it
without some insidious bias would have to agree. Why the ADL
would do this, I can only speculate.

I wish they and other concerned pundits would speculate on
how an Airplane flying in America, where the pilot has to file a
flight plan before taking off, how can such a plane or two or
three of them file such a route in which they would travel, and
in the case of the planes leaving Boston make 45 degree turns
south and fly 54 minutes to the World Trade Center and 90
minutes to the Pentagon and not be challenged by US Air Defense
Fighters, or brought down by ground to air missiles? Having been
in the Air Force I know those ADC fighters would normally
confront such "rogue" aircraft within a few minutes!
Why was this not done? Let the ADL and the media investigating
me, investigate that!

We should know that Bush and his Right Wing crew want War
against all the forces of their so called "Axis of
Evil" What a not so wild coincidence that the path of this
Axis parallels the route of the proposed US oil corporations-
pipe line from Saudi to the far east, apparently to oppose the
spiraling economic growth and influence of China. They scream
"Bin Laden" and "Taliban" and destroy
Afghanistan, install a puppet president and a shadow occupation
force.

Next in the Axis is Iraq, we should have known that. With no
real proof at all again the people of the US outraged and
frightened by the Reichstag of 911 are hyped with chants of
"Regime Change" and "Saddam Hussein". No
longer is the madness of crowds being aroused by the "Anti
“Terrorist" campaign and Bin Laden as the Devil figure
used to rouse the people to a patriotic frenzy, now it is Saddam
Hussein. So forget last month's war and get ready for this
month's.

Bush says he wants "regime change" in Palestine, he
wants to oust Arafat, now in Iraq, and he wants to oust Saddam.
The Axis projects Iran next and then North Korea. What is this
an updated version of 1984 or an American version of Hitler's
and Bush's New World Order?

Regime Change, why? Because these regimes are anti democratic
or terrorists or in the case of Saddam, they have "weapons
of mass destruction". Well if being anti democratic were a
good rationalization for foreign invasions of countries then the
United States better watch out because the Florida coup, which
tricked the American people into accepting Bush as President is
anything but democratic. Should we let foreign countries invade
us to get rid of Bush? What would be the American People's
reaction to such Third Reich replay?

And as for Saddam having "weapons of mass
destruction" (or mass diversion as some critics say) The US
has these weapons. So do Israel, South Africa, Germany, France,
Italy, England, Russia, and now China, India, Pakistan. How is
it the US and its allies (except the Chinese) can have such
weapons, but no one else can. The answer to that, of course, is
White Supremacy and Imperialism. And what should be the growing
understanding by the American people and the democratic people
of the world, is what the far right Bush coven wants is a
military dictatorship of the world.

The ADL, by attacking me by distorting what my poem is
saying, is doing its usual ugly, as a well known running dog of
imperialism, particularly by attacking anyone who takes an
independent position or is critical of Israeli Imperialism and
its attendant ideology political Zionism. As they are attempting
with me the ADL slanders anyone who is not happy with Israel's
ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians As Anti Semitic, when lst
of all Israel and its guiding philosophy have nothing to do, as
categories, with Jews. (See "Zionism in the Age of the
Dictators", Brenner).

But this is the trick such demagogues as the ADL use to hide
the crimes of Imperialist Israel. When we criticize US
imperialism does that make us enemies of Christianity, maybe
only to Jerry Falwell and such Right wing Christian Zealots,
perhaps Asscraft But neither Israel nor Zionism is the same as
Judaism. (Op cit Brenner; also "The Dilemma of the
Modern Jew, Prinz".) But this is the trick the Israeli's
and their sympathizers use to hide behind Judaism. Israel
(and it's political Zionism) has as much to do with Judaism, as
the US has to do with Christianity.

In the US our constitution makes clear that this is a secular
nation and by law theoretically enforces separation of church
and state, though Mr. Bush and Mr. Asscraft have demonstrated
they disagree, and Israel outright says it is a "Jewish
State" but if that is so then that explains why it can
discriminate against its Arab people living inside Israel and
make them 2nd class citizens, in much the same way
that South Africa, a close friend did under Apartheid. (See
"The Crisis of Black Jewish Relations", Brenner &
Bloom; "Israel and South Africa", Stevens &
Ellmessi; The "Arabs in Israel" by Sabri Jiryis,
foreword by Noam Chomsky).

The ADL attacks so it can confuse people and show me as just
another Anti- Semitic attacker of their absolutely false
depictions of Israel as a victim of Palestinian Terrorism. This
is absolutely in tune with the Bush administrations Frenzied
"destroy Iraq regime change "Jones" (a street
word for narcotics addiction) that the administration is
chanting around us like cheer leaders at a football game! So
that US imperialism can transform the whole of the Middle East,
the Arab world into a gas station (See "Bushwacked: A
Counterfeit President for a Fake Democracy", Baraka)

So that we are supposed to believe that if a little girl
blows herself up in a Israeli Pizza Parlor, she is a terrorist,
but when Israeli Jets, made in the USA, destroy whole sections
of Palestinian cities, bulldoze neighborhoods, all but destroy
the Palestinian Center of Governance, with its President, Yasser
Arafat, inside sitting in the dark, it is the Israelis who are
victims and the little Palestinian girl or boy or young man or
young woman or even elder, they are the terrorists.

We are supposed to be intimidated by demagogues like the Anti
Defamation League (who should be called the Anti Anti Defamation
League) so that Israel as a jr. partner of the Bush led US
goosestep to world military domination can commit ethnic
cleansing of the Palestinians in the name of fighting
terrorism.

It is the ADL, which is actually guilty of what its leader,
Abraham Foxman calls the Hitlerian "Big Lie", and
ironically it is the ADL, which is "spewing anti-Semitic
venom". The same ADL which became aware of "Black Anti
Semitism", which it had earlier said has never been a
threat, until Stokely Carmichael and SNCC began to support the
PLO and the Palestinian Struggle as a Liberation Struggle and
condemn Israeli Imperialism and Zionism. That is when, as
Stokeley Carmichael says in the APRP's "Smash
Zionism" the ADL smashed SNCC instead.

As Israel drew closer to South Africa, politically,
economically, militarily in the 60s (Op Cit, above &
others) the Black Liberation Movement and African Nations became
more and more guilty, according to the ADL, of "Black
Anti-Semitism."

This is the same ADL who opposed Affirmative Action, even
though many Jews benefited by the Civil Rights Struggle, and the
most notable white comrades in that struggle were young Jews.
The same ADL that filed an Amicus Curiae (friend of the court
brief) in the historic and reactionary Baake Decision which
challenged & defeated the University of California's
affirmative action as "racist" and was explained by
the ADL as its opposition to quotas. So that the university's
could now enforce a quota on Black students of none!

This is the same ADL, which in league with the American
Israel Political Action Committee, just a few weeks ago sent
millions of dollars into Atlanta, Georgia to defeat progressive
Black Congress woman Cynthia McKinney, because she called for a
more balance American view of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.
These same forces defeated in Alabama, another
progressive Black incumbent Congressman, because he too dared to
support the Palestinians. (See New York Times, Amsterdam
News, Star Ledger).

Very much like the way Bush touts "Regime Change,"
recently even hinting at an attempted Assassination of Saddam
Hussein, if the American People rise up and force our congress
to deny the Bush juggernaut of terror to attack Iraq. ADL and
their " bagman" AIPAC didn't like these black
politicians stance on Israel, so in a minute and a few million
dollars, they are gone!

So now, it's my turn. Using my poem, "Somebody Blew Up
America" they are going to spread the Big Lie, distort what
poem says. Cover the fact that this poem actually is an attack
on Imperialism, National Oppression, Monopoly Capitalism,
Racism, Anti-Semitism. I challenge ADL to show anywhere in
this poem that is Anti-Semitic in the least. In their press
release they say talk about "Jews being scapegoated
throughout history-- then "conspiracy mongers of the Arab
world--have taken Anti-Israel propaganda to a new level "
(Mr. Foxman, what is the Arab World? Alan Dershowitz in his
"Chutzpah" says the basis of bigotry is
"overgeneralization," so where is the "Arab
World"? Is Detroit included? Asscraft thinks so.

Earlier the press release mentions "the Muslim
World" does that include Lyons Ave, Newark? But then
from "Anti-Semitism" the release goes to Israel, not
Jews, and Israeli Mossad as those victimized. So they fight Anti
Semitism Mainly by "defending" Israel. In fact
they defend Israel like Joe McCarthy "defended" the US
against Communism. Included in my package is a communique from
an Israeli Peace Organization ": Gush Shalom",
"Israeli Peace Block (see Defamation from the Anti
Defamation League Answered" (info@gush-shalom.org).

This was first published 7/11/2000 as a press release.
"In the past 24 hours, an attack is being mounted against
Gush Shalom. Knesset Member Collette Avital (Labor) has actually
lodge a complaint with the police, claiming that cartoons
presented on our website constitute "incitement". And
the powerful American Jewish organization Anti -Defamation
League found time, even on election day, over there, to
disseminate a message of defamation against "Gush
Shalom", which already resulted in hate e-mails being sent
our address."

In a following message signed by Adam Keller Gush, Shalom
Spokesperson. The organization defends itself from an ADL pres
release s "expressing outrage at Gush Shalom's portrayal of
Prime Minster Barak as a killer of Palestinian children in a
caricature on its web site, stating that the image of Barak
standing on the bleeding bullet ridden body of a Palestinian
child is abhorrent."

Gush Shalom replies, "Still after consulting with my
fellow activists I am in a position to make an offer. Should a
complete week seven days pass in which not a single unarmed
Palestinian is killed by the Israeli armed forces which are
answerable to Mr. Barak, we would remove the above mentioned
cartoon from our website."

The Gush Shalom statement ends "As for the ADL- an
organization which claims to 'counter hatred prejudice and
bigotry' can you truly find no other places to search for such,
with Israeli society in its present condition, except at our
modest website." Was the ADL attacking these Israelis for
being Anti Semitic or criticizing rather forcefully the
continuous murder of the Palestinians. So in Israel itself, ADL
is still covering for and attacking anyone, even Israeli
citizens themselves who oppose the Bush Zionist Plan to de-Palestinianize
Palestine!

Another communication from Israel (robertoj69@yahoo.com).
This signed by 95 Israeli Academics (copy included in pkg), Sept
23, 2002 that begins "URGENT WARNING: THE ISRAELI
GOVERNMENT MAY BE CONTEMPLATING CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY" It
goes on, "We members of the Israeli academe are horrified
by US buildup of aggression towards Iraq and by the Israeli
political leadership's enthusiastic support of it. We are deeply
worried by indications that the "fog of war" could be
exploited by the Israeli government to commit further crimes
against the Palestinian people, up to full-fledged ethnic
cleansing."

One striking description of the Israeli Military by these
professors is that in an interview found in Haaretz Sept 19,
2002, Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon describe the
Palestinians as a "cancerous manifestation" and
equated the military actions in the Occupied territories with
"chemotherapy" Certainly the ADL will have to go after
these "Anti Semites" using the "Big Lie" and
"Spewing Anti-Semitic Venom"! And the growing list of
progressive democratic people around the world who will have
opinions about Israel and Political Zionism independent of the
ADL, the ADL will have to attack and slander them as well

I challenge the ADL to set up a national television program
so that we might debate this issue. We can project the poem on a
wall and go down line by new and discuss it. If not that then
why not a forum or debate some place like NYC Town Hall or at
Symphony Hall in Newark.

Why not take a survey of those who heard the poem at the
Dodge Festival? Those who registered and the students brought by
schools could be contacted and a survey taken to reflect just
the majority of people hearing the poem thought, not just some
shadowy surrogates of Imperialism who are trying to convince
people that I and my poem are the enemy not US and Israeli
Imperialism.

I have already gotten a great many communications praising
the poem. A great many E-mail letters and phone calls not only
praising the poem, and the poet for writing it, but also
opposing the attempt to violate my first amendment rights by
this oft repeated ADL skin game of calling critics of
imperialism Anti Semites.

I have already said, in answer to what Governor McGreevey is
quoted as demanding that I apologize and that I resign as NJ
Poet Laureate. And I have said repeatedly that I will do
neither. It is unfortunate that Governor McGreevey has been
stampeded by paid liars, and apologists for ethnic cleansing and
white supremacy, bourgeois nationalists and the dangerously
ignorant, to be panicked into joining in the ADL's slander,
belittling my intelligence, and insulting not only my person, my
family, my fellow artists and activists who know all this is
just the feces of a very small cow.

But they are also attacking my work in the arts and my social
political views. By demanding that I apologize to Evil and
Submit to some fundamentally racist and politically motivated
call for me to resign as New Jersey's Poet Laureate, he is
insulting the broad group of people who know he is incorrect and
who have read and celebrated and valued my work. And that is a
grave mistake, one I am hoping he will correct.

"Somebody Blew Up America!" was written Oct
1, 2001. A month after the terror attack. Almost
immediately I circulated it around the world on the Internet. In
addition, I have read this poem in Spain, Portugal, Africa,
Switzerland, Italy, Finland and it was translated into German
and read on German radio, at Universities and other venues
across this country. It has become one of the most circulated of
my poems.

Yet it was not until I read the poem at the Dodge Poetry
Festival that I got negative response from three people that I
know of. The overwhelming response was an almost thunderous
applause. I even had to come out and take a second bow at one
performance. So why now and Who, as the poem asks, is behind it?
Perhaps the forces which have dishonestly tried to characterize
the poem as "venom" or merely "a
harangue" (just as they called John Coltrane's music
"Barbaric Yawps") are simply, the Charlie McCarthy
voices for Bush & Sharon's Edgar Bergen's. Empty-headed
devilish dummies constructed of wood and painted and costumed
to look like it is real people speaking, when all the time it is
imperialism is the ventriloquist speaking through their mouths,

NO, I WILL NOT APOLOGIZE, I WILL NOT RESIGN. In fact I will
continue to do what I have appointed to do but still have not
been paid to do. Publicize and Popularize poetry and poets
throughout this state. To set up new venues and new networks for
poetry reading and workshops, in the states libraries and
schools and other institutions. Hopefully initiated and given
paradigm right here in the Newark Public Library, its branches
and throughout the school system. Therefore giving more of our
citizens access to poetry, involving poets of all nationalities,
both male and female, of diverse experience and styles. I have
already begun to enlist coordinators of poetry programs
throughout the state, so that we can network a tour of poets,
hopefully beginning in January, throughout the state.

To do this I will be approaching local, county, state,
federal and private funding. And expand our budget with the
cooperation of these other existing programs. We will ask
that poets POET-ON! That they begin to produce at least one poem
or publish a poem monthly, in the most modest forms, Kinko
style, and give them away if they have to. That they begin to
set up readings not only in the places we mentioned but also in
parks and restaurants and in neighborhoods.

We say this because we feel that this state and indeed this
nation and this world is desperately in need of the deepest and
most profound human values that poetry can teach. That is what
Keats and Du Bois called for the poet to do, to bring Truth and
Beauty. To be like the most ancient paradigmythic image of the
poet. To be like Osiris and Orpheus, whose job it was to raise
the Sun each morning with song and story. To illuminate the
human mind, and bring light into the world. POET ON!

October 3, 2002

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NEWARK, N.J.

(AP) -- The state's poet laureate defended a poem he wrote
implying that Israel knew of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in
advance, and rebuffed the demand of Gov. James McGreevey that he
resign and apologize.

Amiri Baraka asserted that the meaning of his poem,
``Somebody Blew Up America,'' has been distorted. ``It is a poem
that aims to probe and disturb, but there is not any evidence of
anti-Semitism,'' Baraka told a supportive crowd of about 200 at
the Newark Public Library on Wednesday.

Baraka used his keynote address at a ceremony naming the
library a ``literary landmark'' for a nearly 40-minute rebuttal
of his critics, including the governor and the Anti-Defamation
League.

Baraka was appointed poet laureate in July. Gov. James
McGreevey demanded he resign Friday after Baraka read the poem
last month at a poetry festival. ``Who knew the World Trade
Center was gonna get bombed,'' the poem says. ``Who told 4,000
Israeli workers at the Twin Towers to stay home that day? Why
did Sharon stay away?''

During his speech Wednesday, Baraka insisted that Israel, as
well as President Bush, the FBI and a host of U.S. allies knew
of the impending terrorist attacks. He cited media reports. Shai
Goldstein, New Jersey regional director of the ADL, supported
McGreevey's call for Baraka to resign.

"One of our big concerns is that the `big lie' has now
been repeated by a representative of the state of New Jersey,''
Goldstein said Wednesday.

The poet laureate position was created in 1999 and pays
$10,000 per two-year term. A recommendation to name Baraka poet
laureate came from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and
the state Council on the Arts. The title and the grant money
cannot be rescinded, and the decision to resign is entirely up
to Baraka.

Baraka was recommended for the post by a panel convened by
the New Jersey Council for the Humanities. The council had no
other role in his appointment, said Jane Brailove Rutkoff, the
council's executive director. While recognizing Baraka's right
to free speech, the group said in a statement that it believes
Baraka has compromised his position and should resign.